This Simple Light
by Seishuku Skuld
Summary: Shounenai, spoilers for the ending of Kingdom Hearts 2. Sora and Riku are finally together, and things are as they should be.


**This Simple Light**  
By Seishuku Skuld Kingdom Hearts  
Pairing: Sora/Riku  
Warnings: shounen-ai, worksafe, mild spoilers for KH2 ending

The sky was dark and overcast, clouds casting dull shadows on the sand beneath their bodies. There was no sound between them except for the soft lapping of the water at their feet. Their exhausted breathing had quieted down and now the distance between them seemed impossibly small as they lie side by side less than an arm's reach away.

Riku looked at Sora out of the corner of his eye. The boy was staring upward at the sky, a small smile on his face. He seemed too content, lying there with his hands behind his head, staring up the grey sky without a care in the world. As far as he was concerned, his job was done and his friends were safe, and it seemed not to matter to him where he was as long as he was with...

Unbidden thoughts sprang to Riku's mind. He had matured much over the past year, gradually growing into a body that was taller, bigger, larger than the one he'd worn just a year ago. Sora too had seemed to grow older in the year of his sleep. He was taller now, his face having lost some of its boyishness in exchange for the very beginnings of a manhood yet to blossom. Riku quickly averted his eyes, but too late, for Sora had caught his gaze. The brown-haired boy broke into a brilliant smile, a grin that spread from ear to ear. He looked so happy then, that Riku felt that he paled in comparison. He had changed so much in the time that he spent in the world of darkness that Sora's smile was almost too bright for him to bear. It tugged at his heart, once a slow burn, now ignited into a desperate fire that he struggled to quench to no avail. They had confessed almost everything but the one thing lay deep inside their hearts, and Riku had been surprised that all the animosity of the events one year ago had been so easily forgiven. He recalled Sora's face when they had finally met, the tears that had streamed so freely down his cheeks. Sora had been so unabashed of his emotions that it had made Riku even more ashamed of the form he had chosen; that he could have thought so little of Sora to think the younger boy would have repudiated him for his choice. Sora had not minded at all that Riku had chosen Ansem—no, the body of Xehanort's Heartless form, and once he had seen through the shadow and to Riku inside, Sora had not treated him any differently than the rest of his friends. There then had bloomed that small hope in his heart, the first time in a long time that he had heard Sora call out his name, that perhaps there might have been more to Sora's search for him, something that boded more than just the friendship they shared. Riku dared not hope, but he knew that were their positions reversed, Sora would not be afraid of the feelings that shone in his heart.

"Riku?" Sora asked that same smile still on his face, an unmistakable glow in the younger boy's eyes. "What were you thinking?"

Riku tried to shrug nonchalantly. He kept his eyes fixed on the one pinpoint of light in the entire sky, an eternally setting sun—stuck between its zenith and the ocean horizon—keeping this world forever locked in twilight. "Nothing," he said, his voice catching in his throat.

Sora's grin grew even wider. He rolled over and propped himself up on his elbows, so close that he was nearly hovering over Riku's chest. "You're lying," Sora said simply, matter of factly. The boy didn't seem to be particularly offended, only interested. "I can tell." Sora smiled again, something slightly suggestive that indicated that Riku had better cough up whatever thoughts he had on his mind or Sora might do something untoward; and the boy was certainly not above attacking his friend lying defenseless in the sand.

Riku opened his mouth to say something—a little white lie—anything to shield him from the disappointment that would inevitably follow, but Sora beat him to it. "About us?" he asked innocently. "Me?"

Riku paused with his mouth open, hanging in space for one short second before answering. "...yeah," he said finally, awkwardly as Sora's grin softened. His blue eyes turned gentle, losing their mischievous light. "Y'know, Sora..." Riku began, his brain forming the words automatically, his lips and tongue moving numbly in the very beginnings of a confession that Sora had inexorably drawn out of him with his first smile, "I've realized that I--"

The touch of their bodies made Riku stop. He almost choked on the word that he'd been trying to say, his tongue locked in the shape of something that sounded like an "L" when Sora had sidled up, too fast for Riku to do anything, one arm and one leg coming about his side, planting themselves heavily in the sand to lock him beneath a Sora that now sat on his chest.

"Really?" Sora asked, staring deeply into Riku's, a gaze so piercing that Riku was scared it saw right into his innermost thoughts, so close that not even one bit of the grey sky remained in his vision—it was all Sora and his blue eyes, reflecting only concern. Sora's look of disbelief would have knocked Riku to the ground had he not been already lying down on it.

"Do you mean it?" the words burst forth from Sora, so fast, filled with a hope that the boy could not disguise. Sora had always been so innocent, so easy to crush, but yet it never seemed to happen to him. Once upon a time Riku would have seen that as weakness, as naïveté, but know he knew it as strength. That one point of Sora's will that he could never match, never compete with, a glimmer of light that he had always wanted to reach for but could never catch.

Riku nodded wordlessly, hardly finishing his gesture before Sora closed the distance between them, the only warning the silver-haired boy had was the sudden closing of Sora's eyes. It was an innocent kiss, an innocent kiss that started without hesitation. Sora poured everything of himself into it—as he did all things—and it seemed that everything he felt, the joy of having found his friend, the love that he had harbored and nurtured throughout the entire journey poured itself into Riku. Riku's heart beat against his chest wildly, like a caged bird begging to be set free, and he found that his hand had moved up of its own volution to bury itself in Sora's hair, his fingers twining in the brown-haired boy's spiky locks. They pushed with each other like the waves pushed against the shoreline, one smooth motion of two bodies moving in tandem, pulling back and forth in a way that only the body knew, ancient knowledge the mind could not interfere with.

Riku lost track of the time they stayed like that, Sora settled comfortably on his hips, arms placed like thin—but not fragile—pillars at the side of Riku's head, washing away all of his doubts and the darkness he had endured for. And there he was given hope again, so suddenly that he almost thought this was another trick of the darkness, another illusion that was too good to be true. But it wasn't and he felt it, he felt Sora's heart beat alongside his, the boy's comfortable weight pressing him into the sand. It was forever that they kissed, meeting in that space between two people reserved only for lovers. It was Sora who parted first, reluctant and slow, easing away with small nips. He opened his eyes and Riku had never seen Sora with that expression before—a look that dangled between laughing and crying, but bespoke the greatest of all happinesses. He smiled back at Sora and he laughed, wondering how long it had been since the last time he had heard the sound of his own laughter. Then Sora smiled too, his eyes still watery—about to cry from the joy of it all and the relief; and he fell, nestled his head in the crook of Riku's neck, a special spot that seemed to have been hallowed just for him, it fit him so perfectly.

Riku put a hand around Sora's waist, the boy still half-lying on top of him. A sudden contentment had settled upon Riku, and no longer did he seem to be worried about where they were, about the water at their feet or the dull grey sky that might become their home. Sora was all he needed, and he was all that Sora needed, and even if they were to be locked here together, Sora would still be happy. Tears came to Riku's eyes and he hid them in Sora's hair, turning his cheek to the side to bury his face in the younger boy's scent.

"Don't cry," Sora whispered, his eyes fluttering open. He looked up from his position and kissed Riku on the cheek. "I love you."

The words flowed so easily out of Sora, so smoothly and simply—as if he had been born only to say them—that Riku did not doubt their truth. "I love you too," Riku replied, the words falling over each other, so clumsy on their way out that Riku immediately reddened in embarassment. They came from him not easily at despite all that his heart felt. Sora squeezed his hand and nuzzled his neck; he seemed to understand. Sora always understood everything in his heart of hearts, though sometimes other things might get in the way.

It seemed that a weight had suddenly been lifted off Riku's chest, and he could breathe so much easier than he had ever been able to before. He had always been afraid that Sora's affections had lain in a different direction, but the memory proof their kiss, of the very physical proof of the head lying on his chest told him otherwise. "I love you," Riku tried again, and this time the confession just slipped out, like a secret that wanted to be told.

Sora squeezed his hand again and smiled, pecking a tiny kiss on Riku's lips. Sora lingered there and they held that moment before Sora sighed contentedly and lowered his head, seemingly like he could have stayed there forever.

Forever. Riku mulled the word over in his mind. Forever with Sora. Riku closed his eyes with a quiet sigh, one of great relief. His hardships were over though the memory of the darkness still stayed inside him. But Sora drove out the darkness, and beneath that thick blackness there lay his love, the one bond that nothing could sever.

It was quiet here, at the shore of the ocean where the dusk hung perpetually. And beside the sound of the waves there was the sound of Sora at his side, a low regular breath and the steady beating of a strong heart. Riku held his friend close and Sora responded in like kind, and even if it was their fate to be trapped here forever, they were trapped together and neither could find anything more to ask for.

_ the end _


End file.
